OBIT [Frontal Lobe]

My   Father’s   Frontal    Lobe—died

unpeacefully of a stroke on June 24,

2009 at Scripps  Memorial Hospital in

San Diego, California.  Born January 20,

1940, the frontal lobe enjoyed a good

life.  The frontal  lobe  loved being  the

boss.  It tried to talk again but someone

put a bag over it.  When the frontal

lobe died, it sucked in its lips like a

window pulled shut.  At the funeral for

his words, my father wouldn’t stop

talking and his love passed through me,

fell onto the ground that wasn’t there. 

I could hear someone stomping their

feet.  The body is as confusing as

language—was his frontal lobe having a

tantrum or dancing?  When I took my

father’s phone away, his words died in

the plastic coffin.  At the funeral for his

words, we argued about my

miscarriage. It’s not really a baby, he

said.  I ran out of words, stomped out

to shake the dead baby awake.  I

thought of the tech who put the wand

down, quietly left the room when she

couldn’t find the heartbeat.  I

understood then that darkness is falling

without an end.  That darkness is not

the absorption of color but the

absorption of language.